10/16/2018
I'm a gadget guy. I love various types of technology, especially if it is useful. A few months back, I purchased a MantisX. It appears to be an accelermeter that you attach to the rail a pistol or rifle and has various training modes for dry fire and live fire exercises. It also has various attachments you can get to attach it to fi****ms without rails.
The device provides feedback through your smart phone or tablet using an electronic version of the army troubleshooting target. It also gives you a score to help with consistency. However, it can be a little deceiving compared to shooting at an actual target. I'll have to admit that I was a little surprised at how bad it said I shot, so I really began to work on trying to get high scores with it.
Even with high scores, it still mocks me with phrases like "anticipating recoil" and "too much finger".
For about the first two months, I practiced everyday in dry fire mode making sure I got at least 200 "shots" a week. Note that during this time there was no live fire of pistols at all, though I did hit the rifle range a few times.
While at the rifle range, I noticed that I had begun to apply the newly found habits I had learned with dry fire pistol practice and my groups were actually tighter than they have been in a long time.
The next time I hit the pistol range was with black powder revolvers. To my surprise, I was shooting tighter groups than I normally do with theses guns and mostly all around or in the bullseye.
One of the things you can do with the MantisX is review your trends on line, which I hadn't done much of. To be honest, I had sort of lost interest due to other projects and I could never seem to get great shots according to my feed back. I knew I didn't shoot as bad as this thing let on, so I really did see the value. However, when I observed my trends, I noticed the scores went from 70s to low 80s to high 80s to high 90s. I also noticed that I had fewer "flyers" though my groups didn't seem to tighten up a lot. After doing more reading, looking at other's reviews, and speaking with someone at Mantis, I found out that the "shots" you get for feedback is sort of relative to the other shots in the group. The big thing is to concentrate on eliminating the feedback "nags" and get your score as high as possible.
After dry firing with it off and on for 6 months, I finally went to the range to test two new pistols I had never shot. This is the first time I have shot a semi-auto pistol since using the system. I have so say, I was pleased with the results. I shot at 5, 7, 10,15, and 25 yards. Note, I can't see the bullseye at 25 yards, but I shot where I thought it should be and was surprised that every shot was actually on target with the group at about 8" for 30 shots. I know that doesn't seem all that great to a lot of people, but that is the first time in probably 10 years that I've grouped that well at 25 yards. Perhaps some prescription shooting glasses would help tighten this up.
At the closer distances, my groups were 2-4 inches with no flyers. My partners will testify that I always have a flyer that pulls left and down. At least one per magazine.
So, my thoughts? Well, after months of this thing nagging about every little micro mistake, including not folding the towels right and putting up mismatched socks, I have to say that I think it actually helped. It's like a personal coach in your smart phone. As an instructor, I could see this being a great assistance during classes. It gives the student instant, shot by shot feedback and then a summary of the big picture things to improve after each string of shots.
Check out https://mantisx.com/. It's the cost of about 4-6 private lessons but you get schooled every time you use it. And you don't have to go to the range and burn ammo to get better.
MantisX is a revolutionary fi****ms training device that helps shooters of all types to improve their shooting mechanics more rapidly.
